mammax3 Posted August 30, 2009 Posted August 30, 2009 This man is making me think! I've been grappling with the idea that a person should already be complete, prior to meeting their partner, and if that's true, what does each bring to the table, and how do they form a partnership without that interdependance. He writes: A good relationship demands that there be two whole people who choose to be in the relationship and know that each can live without the other. The opposite of this is an enmeshment or entanglement, wherein both persons involved are convinced they cannot make it without the other. ("Bradshaw on:The Family", p186) Would you please give some input. This is such a foreign thought to me that I'm having a hard time seeing what a relationship like this would look like, what would keep these two people together, how intimacy would look, what an average week would look like - do they connect? go out? just share the same space without interaction? Or, conversely, do you disagree with this notion? Thanks in advance.
D-Lish Posted August 30, 2009 Posted August 30, 2009 I think you have to like yourself first before you can accept that someone else likes you. If you don't like yourself, you'll have problems relating to someone that chooses to like you. I've been there~ when I am feeling bad about myself and I meet someone that thinks I am awesome, I have a difficult time reconciling with their feelings for me. That always leads to a difficult relationship with that person. Conversely, when I feel good about myself~ I feel much more comfortable with someone else thinking I am wonderful. I also feel I attract more upbeat, happy people. Like attracts like.
TaraMaiden Posted August 30, 2009 Posted August 30, 2009 hellsbells, I bet he's made sh*tloads of money on this, and i could have written this. In fact, it's ale]ready been written, thousands of times. You cannot come into a relationship and be the perfect partner if you come loaded with baggage, issues, hang-ups and agendas. You have to be complete in the sense that you either have none of the above - which frankly, as a human being, is impossible - or have all of the above to some degree, but be happy with it and accept that life will always bring hurdles to leap over, mountains to climb, walls to demolish and things to do, and that's ok. You might have baggage, issues, hang-ups and agendas, but you also need to be comfortable with them, or change them without attempting to offload and divest yourself of all your load, expecting the other person to carry it for you. A completely balanced person knows they have history, but that's precisely where it's all staying - in the past, or in the wings. it may be a construct of who you are, but it's not WHO you are. our problems are not WHO WE ARE. And the important - nay, vital - thing to realise, is that baggage only affects us insofar as we grant it permission to do so. becoming dependent on the happiness we think only someone else can bring us, is abdicating responsibility for generating our own inner happiness. Your happiness is not dependent on having a significant other. Your happiness is entirely dependent on loving yourself wholly, completely and totally, exactly as you are, where you are, right now.
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